


A tramp, a gentleman, a poet... a dreamer.

by mintchocolate_gelato



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Behind the Scenes, Extended Scene, Fluff, M/M, Missing Scene, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-01
Updated: 2012-01-01
Packaged: 2017-11-14 19:09:17
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,624
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/518553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mintchocolate_gelato/pseuds/mintchocolate_gelato
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AUish. A kiss can change everything, even the fabric of the universe itself.<br/>Ten snapshots of Sherlock and John’s relationship if the laughter under the stairs had turned into more than just a laugh.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A tramp, a gentleman, a poet... a dreamer.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ladyevangelistacain](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=ladyevangelistacain).



> For the Johnlock Fanfic Exchange over at [Johnlock challenges in Tumblr.](http://johnlockchallenges.tumblr.com/)
> 
> The prompt was: “This can be post or pre-Reichenbach. Both Sherlock and John keep dropping subtle hints that they have feelings for each other, but neither pick up on them for a while, as cases come up or John goes on dates they become progressively more forward with their advances, and finally Sherlock ends up taking control and smut ensues.”
> 
> I don't know how well I managed to actually follow the prompt, I'm sorry about that but I hope you like it anyway.
> 
> This goes from A Study in Pink to the end of A Scandal in Belgravia. It is better if you don't take Reichenbach into account when reading this, I'm serious!
> 
> Thanks so much to the lovely [Theoriginalfive.](http://theoriginalfive.tumblr.com/) for the BETA work <3

 

 

 

_"A tramp, a gentleman, a poet, a dreamer, a lonely fellow, always hopeful of romance and adventure."_   
**Charles Chaplin**

**  
****1.**  
The first time they kiss it’s like John has been lifted off the floor by a force much greater than gravity. His back is pressed against the wall of the hallway in 221B Baker Street. His lips are still curled into the big smile that, even now, echoes the laugher both he and Sherlock were incapable of controlling just mere minutes earlier. Sherlock has his hands around John's waist and their bodies are touching at every angle and corner. Their kiss is messy, driven by adrenaline and excitement, the culmination of a moment that started with that first deduction in a laboratory at St. Bart's hospital.  
  
John can't believe himself really, he is not one to do things like this often. He normally gets to know a person before letting anything happen. He has known Sherlock for only a day, and now they are kissing, this is not how it’s supposed to be. There is an internal battle inside him between the side of him that finds Sherlock's lips soft and pliant and the one screaming at him to be careful.  
  
It is just a kiss at the end, not a battlefield. There is no great revelation after it’s over, nothing’s clear between them, and what did he expect really? Kisses don't hold the meaning of life and they can't hold the fabric of the universe together. The fabric of reality slips out slowly, filling in the gaps they failed to acknowledge when adrenaline took over. There are those slips that make Sherlock and John drift apart slowly, two separate pieces of land suffering an earthquake for the first time. When it ends, the world is left shattered and like no one has seen it before; there is a second where they don't know themselves until they look up into each other's eyes.  
  
"You said you were married to your job~" Points John as he slowly pulls back enough too look at Sherlock in the eye as leans against the wall. “Jesus, you told me that barely an hour ago.”  
  
Sherlock half smiles and nods once, "And you said it was all fine and then insisted we weren't on a date, multiple times."  
  
"Because we aren't." John hesitates. "Look, I normally don't do this, I barely know you. Chasing cabs with detectives and escaping the police, then kissing said detectives... not, not really my style." There is a long pause and John wonders if he just ruined it, whatever "it" is. The silence is not exactly uncomfortable, but it almost feels like a presence in the room and John doesn't want it there. "What were we doing there anyway, if you knew it was a long shot?"  
  
Breathlessly, Sherlock answers, without a hint of amusement in his voice even though he is still recovering from their laugh. "Ah, just passing the time and proving a point."  
  
"What point?  
  
"You." And that is unexpected, but not as much as Sherlock's next words. "Mrs. Hudson, Doctor Watson will take the room upstairs."  
  
"Says who?" Replies John with a hint of distaste added just for good measure. Truth is, he decided to stay the minute they got to the door, even before the kiss.  
  
"Says the man at the door."  
  
And the doorbell rings. And John walks perfectly steady, with both feet on the ground, to open it.  
  
And that moment is when it happens. In the future John will look back at this particular event in time and will kick himself in the head for not acknowledging that his world turned upside down right here. That this was the moment he realized there could be something more in the future for himself and Sherlock. Here, when he opens the door of his new flat to find Angelo, the owner of the restaurant they had just visited, with John’s cane in his hand.  
  
Psychosomatic injuries are more problematic than most, because everything is just in one's head. John knows the pain he feels in his leg isn't really there, that it is just a trick of his affected mind. His therapist told him it had been all the horrors he experienced during the war that had caused the phantom pain to manifest. But John _knows_ , he knows that it’s because he is afraid of becoming a ghost of himself, bored, useless and wasted all alone in some dull flat.  
  
"Sherlock texted. He said you forgot this."  
  
And in that moment the pain is not there, just like it wasn't there fifteen minutes ago while he ran through London with Sherlock. John's leg and hand, his whole being really, are perfectly fine, perfectly steady. The fear dissipates little by little and he vows to himself, as he takes his cane, to never need it again. And really, with Sherlock Holmes as flatmate, there is hope that he won't.

 

  
 **2.**  
For Sherlock realization happens just four hours after John's.  
  
Sherlock follows a cabbie that turns out to be his serial killer (which should have been obvious from the start).  
  
Time is still as he stands on one of the cafeteria’s of Ronald Kerr Further Education College. Sherlock is holding one of the white pills the killer cabbie has been using to eliminate his victims. He isn't sure if he has got the lethal one or the potentially harmless one, for all he knows they can both be equally dangerous. He doesn’t see any visible differences on their physical appearance, but poison can be masked very well. The only way to prove he is right is to taste it, but the price of being wrong may be a bit too much.  
  
Sherlock's brain urges him on with quick deductions about the cabbie to prove the hypothesis that his is in fact the harmless pill. The months he has spent bored and feeling like his mind is going to rot remind him that this is interesting, that even if he doesn't make it, dying is still one more puzzle he will never find the answer to while alive. And finally his ego, black and big and looming over with his pride by its side, tell him no one will know how smart and clever he is if he doesn’t prove it to them, until every doubt has been squeezed from their bodies and minds.

It's almost enough to decide for him.  
  
But in that second of time, suspended between life and death,  something makes a hole on the window behind him and the pill falls to the ground, getting lost under one of the tables. It is lifesaving, because for all of Sherlock’s genius he still cannot predict the future. He doesn’t know a man named James Moriarty arranged this meeting and he doesn’t know that he switched these two pills at the very last minute, making both of them lethal, seconds after swallowing. The object collides with the cabbie’s shoulder and blood spills out of the wound. It makes him fall back on his back to the floor sobbing in pain.  
  
It takes a few seconds for Sherlock to recover from the surprise enough to recognize the object. A bullet, shot from a Browning, possibly a Sig Sauer, impossible to tell since it is now buried in the wall at the other side of the room.  
  
Sherlock promptly looks out of the window, keen on identifying the shooter. But outside there is nothing but another building and another window with the exact same hole as this one. Remarkable, simply remarkable, that someone was as skilled as to shoot from such a great distance with frankly frightening accuracy. Sherlock feels a chill run down his spine.  
  
After the shot, getting the man to cooperate is easy. Something switches off in Sherlock’s brain. That small sensation on the back of his mind that stops him from doing certain things sometimes. That which other people, ordinary petty people, may call subconscious.  Torture just seems like the most logical thing. He uses his foot to put pressure on the cabbie's wounded shoulder, presses and prods until more blood is coming out and the cabbie’s screams became louder and more pained.  
  
He gets a name, 'Moriarty' just before the cabbie's eyes close, but Sherlock hasn’t the faintest idea of what it means.  
  
What happens next is all a bit of a blur, between Lestrade fetching him and taking him forcefully towards an ambulance and the police marking everything around him as a crime scene. He tries to remember or connect anything he may know about the word Moriarty or  the marksman from the other building. But he finds nothing, and now that the case is done hunger is distracting him from any real thinking.  
  
"So the shooter, no sign?" He asks Lestrade, when the inspector finally comes to see him.  
  
"Cleared off before we got here. But a guy like that would have enemies I suppose, one of them could be following him but... we have nothing to go on." Answers Lestrade.  
  
"Oh I wouldn't say that" There is plenty to the deduce from the origin of the shot and Sherlock’s curiosity won’t leave him alone until he knows.  
  
"Okay, give me."  
  
"The bullet they just dug out of the wall is from a handgun. A kill shot over that distance, from that kind of a weapon, that's a crack shot you're looking for but not just a marksman, a fighter..."  He see’s a man in his mind’s eye with military pace and a stern face, raising a gun with a calm expression as if he were doing something normal and...  
  
Sherlock looks up and his eyes find John. He stops mid sentence and blinks as if his eyes were adjusting to daylight for the first time in a long while.  
  
It comes as revelation, every moment since the day before when he first met John Watson comes to his mind and suddenly makes sense. Yesterday there was no evidence that John Watson was remarkable, that he would simply follow Sherlock one day and shoot a man for him. And yet, here they are... and John is quickly fighting his way into the permanent realms of Sherlock’s mind.

Sherlock can’t imagine being anywhere else.  
  
Sherlock thinks back to the kiss of mid-afternoon, to the way he gave himself to John so easily, thinking of it as just one more experiment driven mostly by the adrenaline of the moment. Maybe it’s that his subconscious had noticed something about John that Sherlock only noticed now.  
  
"Good shot." He says as he approaches John a few minutes later.  
  
"Yes, it must have been. Through that window." John still pretends, doesn't trust Sherlock enough. But Sherlock pushes a bit further.  
  
"Well, You'll know."  
  
And that’s the correct thing to say because John smiles and Sherlock smiles and in no time they are laughing just like they were laughing under the stairs of their now shared flat. It's a crime scene and one person is dead, but they can't even bring themselves to care about the fact with each other's laughter ringing in their ears like music.  
  
Not even Mycroft’s unexpected visit, which would sour Sherlock’s mood every day, at anytime, lessens his desire to just go home _with John_.  
  
And that’s the biggest revelation of his life.

 

  
  
 **3.**  
Nothing happens for nearly two months. The kiss that left them questioning their mere existence and everything they ever thought shaped them, fades away into the nostalgic nothingness of stored memories.  
  
Neither Sherlock nor John ever bring it up.  
  
Did it even mean anything? Or was it just a mere reflection of their state of mind at the moment of the event? Were they feeling delirious and adventurous enough to simply dive in and do what felt right?  
  
And that's the problem isn't it? How right it had felt, how right it feels even now.  
  
But still, they don't bring it up and they go on about their lives as if that kiss was simply just another formality of their flatmates contract, just another random event in their already agitated and crazy lives.

Both Sherlock and John slowly begin developing an invisible thread, which ties them to each other. Over the next month as they learn about one another, about heads on the fridge, and guns on drawers, about cyanide in the microwave and neat hospital bed corners, they become Sherlock and John, a unified entity.  
  
This is what friendship means and they both acknowledge it as such. Even Sherlock, who has for most of his life not let anyone in closer than necessary, accepts it as such.  
  
But that kiss... that kiss still haunts them.While they don't repeat it again or seek it out, it still appears in their day dreaming and late night fantasies.

Friends rarely dream of sharing warmth with each other the way Sherlock imagines them on those nights when he doesn't sleep at all. He imagines them curled around one another on the floor or tight on the couch or even on Sherlock's bed while he speaks about past cases, crime scenes, and remarkable scientific experiments while John listens. He imagines London with someone always beside him to admire it and to waltz, from puzzle to puzzle, while they try to unravel the puzzles that are each other.   
  
As far as John is concerned friends surely never think about the feeling of their friend's lips against their own, the softness and the texture of their teeth and tongue, like John thinks often as he walks on his daily errands. He imagines pressing Sherlock against the wall of 221B just like Sherlock had pressed him. He imagines another kiss just like that one, with so many revelations and hopes and dreams included in the dance of their tongues. John imagines quiet nights in, watching Doctor Who on telly as Sherlock complains about the impossibility of the fictional situations or is baffled by the 'stupidity' references he doesn’t know, but that John will explain to him.  
  
And so, love grows.  It grows as understanding and acceptance. It grows as anger and annoyance. It grows as something with no name that they have yet to understand. Something they never dare talk about. It grows in every form. Except that no words every escape their tongues.  
  
John's words are frozen by the years of experience that warn him how much a friendship can be ruined by an arrow to the heart. Meanwhile Sherlock is silenced by his blindness, the self-inflicted kind. The shield he has put in place against emotions since he was a child.  
  
But when lips are shut, what can be expected about the heart.

 

  
  
 **4.**  
John pretends to feel normal, he pretends there isn't something eating at the insides of his heart while living with Sherlock. He masks what he feels with drinks out with Lestrade, with attention to mundane normal problems, to paying his bills and buying groceries and making tea. He pretends there is nothing between Sherlock and himself that needs to be spoken out for. He pretends the universe is still in the same place it was when he was laying on his back on the hot deserts of Afghanistan. He hides underneath indifference and the adrenaline that feeds his soul when he is with Sherlock. He tells himself it is enough, he doesn't need more than that.  
  
But he knows he is lying to himself. And the events of the following weeks don’t help his state of denial. Like when Sebastian Wilkes is introduced to him, as Sherlock’s ex-boyfriend. John doesn't really know how to react since it is newly revealed information that Sherlock once dated someone. And he worries what it says about himself, that he thought Sherlock only ever found him interesting, and no one else.  
  
But Sebastian Wilkes aside John swears to not say a word and move forward. And just like that, like heaven sent, he meets Sarah.  
  
Sarah is a very pretty name, John thinks as he exits the surgery following his first day at his new job. It has a ring of normality to it, soft vowels after a strong consonant, a symbol of feet in the ground and a tangible future, of possibilities not explored before. John asks her out to dinner and then to a movie, something simple and nice to get to know her and give her the opportunity to know him.  
  
When he arrives home that day, of course Sherlock is there making a mess out of everything as usual. He is frustrated due to the cipher mystery they encountered, still looking through the crates of books from the two victims they have.  
  
For a moment he even feels a bit guilty that he is going out with Sarah. Is he making her out to be some sort of token for his frustration?  He is afraid he is, but Sarah really is lovely and pretty and smart and John truly wants to move forward with her.  
  
"I need some air, we are going out tonight." Says Sherlock the moment John arrives, exasperation clear as water in his voice.  
  
"Actually, I've got a date." John replies with a smile.  
  
"What?"  
  
"It's when two people who like each other go out and have fun."  
  
"That's what I was suggesting."  
  
There isn't a pause after this because John doesn't let it be one. If he pauses then Sherlock will re-think his words, or worse John will start to over think them and that is not moving forward.  
  
"No it wasn't." He says still keeping his smile, and then adds for good measure, "Or at least, I hope not." He misses the expression of complete confusion and loss on Sherlock's face that disappears almost the instant it is created. And after Sherlock gives him dating advice, the topic thankfully dies.  
  
Or so he thinks.  
  
It goes downhill from there. Sarah manages to get caught on the insistent typhoon that is Sherlock Holmes and his battlefields though she makes it out with only with a scratch and  a very traumatic experience. She will survive, she says so herself and John believes it.  
  
It flows easily, quickly. John thinks he may have found something there when she doesn't immediately leave him after the Chinese circus fiasco.  And soon enough he is kissing her, whispering sweet nothings to her ear, digging fingers on her hips and burying himself deep into her. She accepts him for who he is and most importantly for who Sherlock is. She accepts that they are a unity, two sides of the same coin, a duality that keeps the universe from imploding.  
  
But it isn’t meant to last. Not when there is such an overwhelming shadow to compete against. She doesn't say anything at the late nights at crime scenes or the cancellations for a long time, but the shadows under her eyes deepen and she starts thinking about a future that doesn’t include John in it. John doesn’t blame her.  
  
Sarah ends it with a smile and a promise to be friends which neither of them keeps. To Sherlock’s relief and John’s heartbreak. John reminds himself this is exactly why he keeps his feelings about Sherlock locked away, he is afraid it will end like this with a false promise to text soon and go to crime scenes that ends falling into nothing. He doesn’t think he could bear it, if suddenly the entity they formed were to drift apart.

 

  
 **5.**  
Sherlock steps inside the location where little Carl Powers died. The pool is gleaming blue beside him with every light reflection on it’s surface. There is no sound, but the that of water moving from side to side and the old tiles of the floor resounding under his feet. It is a beautiful, almost poetic, scene to this grand meeting with the most dangerous enemy he has ever encountered.  
  
He really is enjoying this game, for the first time Sherlock feels that all his potential is being unleashed, that he is making use of every single one of his brain cells. This game has become the pinnacle of his life.  
  
It is surprising how quickly everything goes downhill when John steps out from the shadows and speaks to him with his enemy’s voice. At first Sherlock is horrified, the first ten seconds are spent going over every moment he has spent with John the past few months, looking for clues anything John amy have left behind to tell Sherlock he was really a criminal mastermind. The next ten seconds he goes from sad and angry to slightly euphoric with the side of his brain he reserves for deductions rather than emotions taking over momentarily. No, this is perfect, if John is Moriarty then their alliance never has to break, they could keep playing this game of cat and mouse forever while still living together. But something is wrong, there is something not quite right with John’s face, it doesn’t match the greeting and the tone of his voice. It takes 30.19 seconds for the truth to fully sink in.  
  
Moriarty has a bomb strapped to John’s chest.  
  
Moriarty is using John as his puppet.  
  
For the first time since he started playing the game, Sherlock wants to yell ‘stop’, ‘let me out!’ ‘I don’t want to play anymore!’. Seeing John with a bomb ticking over his chest, ready to explode and make him disappear from this earth, strips all magic and happiness from a moment before. The euphoria becomes a fear so deep rooted it makes him tremble.  
  
John... the only person Sherlock has ever been capable of being himself with and not be labelled as something he is not, sociopath, lunatic or freak. John, the only person for which Sherlock is simply that, Sherlock.  
  
The echoes of the water against the walls of the pool become screams inside his head. _Save him Save him SavehimSavehim Save..._  
  
“Nice touch, the pool. Where little Carl die. I stopped him, I can stop John Watson too. Stop his heart.” Says John’s voice in a robotic tone  
  
“Who are you?” Demands Sherlock to the space around him, to whoever is daring do this to John Watson.  
  
“I gave you my number.” Answers a familiar voice from the back of the pool. “I thought you may call.” There is a stretch of silence as Sherlock tries to identify who is speaking, he knows he has heard that voice before, very recently. But where... “Is that is that a british army browning l9a1 in your pocket, or are you just pleased to see me?”  
  
“Both.” Sherlock chooses defiance over a show of weakness, of fear. Fear can come later when John is out of here in one piece.  
  
“Jim Moriarty, Hi!!!”  
  
It goes downhill from there.  
  
Moriarty has no qualms about playing him and John with what hurts them the most, each other.  
He calls John ‘Johnny-boy’ and Sherlock’s blood boils, because he’s had no time or opportunity to call John something other than John, he doesn’t want Moriarty to do it. And he doesn’t want to never have the opportunity to do it himself. For the first time death terrifies him.  
  
Sherlock tries to negotiate by giving away the missile plan Mycroft so adamantly wanted him to get back. He knows his brother will not hold it against him and it’s to save John... anything to save John.  
  
But John isn’t something to be toyed with, Sherlock has learnt the hard way. In a quick move John is grabbing Moriarty by the neck and holding him there threatening to end this with both of them gone if the bomb strapped to his chest indeed goes off. Sherlock wants to say something, he wants to say ‘wait no, don’t’. But he doesn’t, he knows John wouldn’t want it that way.  
  
It’s funny how love is not a one way street. The moment Sherlock’s forehead shines with the laser of a sniper gun, John backs away. Sherlock doesn’t really blame him, he would have done the same.  
  
“You know what happens if you don’t leave me alone Sherlock?”  
  
“Oh Let me guess, I get killed...”  
  
“Kill you? No, don’t be obvious, I mean I’m gonna kill you anyway someday, I don’t wanna rush it though. I’m saving it for something special. No no no. If you don’t stop prying.” He makes a pause, Sherlock imagines that he only does it to cause a greater effect, he underestimates the effectivity of it. “I’ll burn you. I’ll...burn...the...heart...out of you.”  
  
His first reaction is to retort as always, even if inside his brain is already making connections, all of which lead to John. “I’ve been reliably informed that I don’t have one.”  
  
Moriarty looks at him with pity almost, “But we both know that’s not quite true.”  
  
And the truth behind those words is alarming, it shakes Sherlock to the very core in a way that he won’t be able to forget for a while.  
  
Sherlock offers to kill them all, better the three of them death than only John, or even only him. It is more romantic this way, he supposes, to be with John the moment his heart stops. John nods when Sherlock communicates his plan with a simple gesture of his head and never before Sherlock felt so connected to someone that he was almost sure they could read his thoughts.  
  
 _You would die with me John...?_  
  
That would be a sweet death indeed.  
  
But Moriarty changes their game at the last minute, a show of compassion from an unknown source echoing through the pool walls with ‘staying alive’ as choir stops the criminal in his tracks. Someone disappointed him, thinks Sherlock when Moriarty’s shouts rebounce of every surface. But whatever it is, it makes every single sniper laser disappear from their bodies and Sherlock is grateful for that.  
  
Moriarty promises he will come back and Sherlock knows he will be forever afraid until that day comes.

 

  
 **6.**  
Coping becomes surviving in the days after the pool events. Both John and Sherlock often wake up in the middle of their sleep with cold sweat and dilated pupils after yet another nightmare.  
  
John dreams of red sniper lasers pointing at Sherlock’s head and a shot resounding through the pool.  
  
Sherlock dreams of a bomb going off, leaving him many wounds, possibly even a missing limb but alive, while John is gone.  
  
They spend as much time away from each other as possible. They still go to crime scenes together, and run all the way through London together, but it’s not the same. There is a thick silence stretching and growing in the middle of their relationship, built of everything that remains unsaid between them.  
  
It’s fear at its most primal what keeps them apart. Sherlock never experienced for anyone what he now experiences for John, and he is afraid of losing it, of going mad after losing it. He replays Moriarty’s words every night like a litany, ‘burn the heart of you’. John is his heart and Sherlock doesn’t want to ever see it burn.  
  
John had experienced it a few times before, for his mates on the army and for Mary too, two types of affection that collide and combine in what he feels for Sherlock.  
  
It’s overwhelming for them both, the realization that it is so fragile, that with their line of work loss is a very real possibility. Distance to calm and overcome their fears, seems the most logical of options.  
  
Cases come and go seemingly without a pattern, and Sherlock takes the interesting ones, leaving the rest to the yard or to the people seeking his help. John only sits on the background and keeps the formalities and the rude behaviour in check. They come up with a system of categorization rating cases from one to ten, from the most boring to the most interesting. Moriarty has been so far the only ten, and Sherlock refuses to take anything lower than a seven. It becomes routine, they solve cases, John blogs about it, and Sherlock sulks.  
  
In time, having a comfortable routine it would have helped them heal from the horror they still feel crawling up their skins.  
  
Who would have thought that a summons from Mycroft would change everything.  
  
At first it seems it’s for the better, Mycroft brings them both against their will to the heart of the nation. To Buckingham Palace itself, Sherlock is naked save for a bed sheet wrapped around his body, and John is at best casual. Definitely not dressed to meet royalty, but it gives them something to laugh at. They look at each other and at the impossibility of the situation they find themselves in, and nothing can stop the happiness that rumbles from their chests and out of their mouths in musical laugher. Among the luxury and the extreme coldness of the marble, they find each other one more time.  
  
But Mycroft comes both as prophet and executioner. He states his case and it seems rather simple, he is looking for compromising photographs, between a member of the royal family and a woman. The woman.  
  
“Irene Adler, professionally known as ‘The Woman’. She is an opera singer, but that is only a hobby. Her main job is a lot more, controversial shall we say, there are many names for what she does.” Mycroft smiles at them. “She prefers dominatrix.”  
  
That sets them forward. Another case, just routine, except that is not.  
  
Sherlock is right when he points out Irene Adler thrives in power play. Not only with the most powerful family in Britain and the British government, but now with Sherlock and John as well.  
  
She plays them like a puppet master, where she wants them to look they look, where she wants them to go they go, and they end up trapped in a lie she constructs solely for them. A lie that leaves behind many scars behind.  
  
The barrier between John and Sherlock, instead of crumbling with time and the force of their friendship, thickens with the death of Irene Adler.

 

  
  
 **7.**  
Adler comes like a force of nature, a tornado swallowing up everything in her path. When she leaves everything that’s left behind has fallen in pieces, destroyed and hard to reconstruct. She leaves Sherlock torn apart and vulnerable, unlike John, or really anyone who knows him, has ever seen him before.  
  
Right after she dies, Sherlock fills their flat with sad melodies, adagios lost at the end of his bow, only to never be picked up again. He writes her music, and looks out of the window as if waiting for a sign, something to tell him she is alright.  
  
Meanwhile John waits by the sidelines, he waits for the great Sherlock Holmes to come back from the grieving and join the world of the living once more. He is waiting  for that day Sherlock will just turn around and say ‘well that was petty’ and go back to normal.  
  
On the outside he carries on as normal, still behaving with Sherlock the way he did before the incident, going about his job and the mundane housework, dating and even aiding Sherlock with some cases. But inside, John burns with fear; he wonders if Sherlock feels something for Irene Adler, he wonders if Sherlock loves Irene Adler, he wonders if Sherlock is heartbroken and if he will ever recover. He wonders not for his sake, but for Sherlock’s, a man like him finally finding love only to have it denied so quickly.  
  
Time comes and goes, Sherlock doesn’t get better and John’s fear increases.  
  
But Irene does come back eventually, ghost like and with the shadow of who had hard times recently. She traps John in an abandoned warehouse and confronts him, about Sherlock’s state of mind, about something Sherlock has that she needs, and about Sherlock’s relationship with him.  
  
John hates her.  
  
He hates her because she hurt him, because thanks to her, the most brilliant mind of London spent weeks in deep slumber. He hates her because she seems to not care the way Sherlock does. He hates her because his shattered world is all her fault, because his relationship with Sherlock since their encounter of the pool never recovered, because of her. He hates that she doesn’t value what she has.  
  
And he hates her for other reasons too, like the bits of jealousy that have been eating at him since Sherlock and Irene first met. And that Irene can see right through John, through the lies that he tells himself and the protective barrier he has created between the world and Sherlock, between the world and himself and, most importantly, between he and Sherlock. ‘We are not a couple.’ ‘Yes you are.’  
  
 _Look at us both._  
  
The encounter haunts his dreams for weeks after that, he wakes up with cold sweat, telling himself she doesn’t know him, she doesn’t know anything.  
  
Sherlock recovers slowly and resentfully, John watches him dig up Irene’s grave in his mind, and try to place her once more in the universe around them as a solid presence. John sees Sherlock succeed eventually in bringing her back to their reality and connect with her on a deeper level, stronger than before. John is happy in a certain level, that his best friend can finally get something more, even if it’s not John who offers it.  
  
So It’s a surprise when he comes back from one of his dates to find Sherlock on his chair alone, looking like he is absorbing the many mysteries of life.  
  
“Did something happen?” Asks John fearfully.  
  
“What needed to happen” Murmurs Sherlock, almost with indifference. “The game is over. I won.”  
  
“Oh?” John doesn’t know what that means for them exactly, for Sherlock. “Right... and why don’t you look happy about that?”  
  
“She is gone.”  
  
It’s only days later that Mycroft informs them Irene has gotten herself kidnapped by a terrorist cell in Pakistan, and that she is to be executed.  
  
John thinks that’s the end of that, he fears Sherlock will fall once again in the strange sort of slumber he did when Irene died once already, but he is ready to face it when it comes, he is ready to finally come out of his cocoon and stand in front of Sherlock like he use to before the pool, like an unconditional friend.  
  
Sherlock however, has other plans and John doesn’t find out until he arrives home after work to an empty flat, a missing suitcase and Mycroft sitting on his living room.  
  
“Good evening John, I’m afraid Sherlock left for Islamabad this morning, he sends his regards.”  
  
“He what?”

 

  
  
 **8.**  
Sherlock goes to Karachi after one of mummy’s contacts manages to tell him exactly where Irene Adler is without Mycroft finding out. He arrives with a disguise and the language perfected, and  a pair of swords he stole from a private collector on the way.  
  
Irene doesn’t take it well.  
  
She punches him under the nose and screams at him for having a white-knight complex -whatever that means- then rightly tells him she already has a plan to escape. It is that plan that takes them both alive out of there and mostly unharmed.  
  
He spends three nights with her in a safe house in Islamabad, recovering enough to take the trip back home and making sure she will survive.  
  
“I’m not a child Mr. Holmes. I know how to take care of myself, I have done it for years and I don’t plan on stopping now.”  
  
“Miss Adler, you were robbed of your protection, like you said before you wouldn’t survive long.”  
  
“Possibly not in Britain, Mister Holmes, but here I can start anew.I know what people like, how they think, I will have them eating out of my hand in no time.”  
  
Sherlock wouldn’t have believed it before meeting her, but he has seen it with his own eyes, has fallen victim of the way Irene Adler manipulates her way into every situation. And suddenly he has no doubt that she will be fine all by herself, that she never really needed his help.  
  
“I should go back to England.” He mutters, more to himself than to her.  
  
“Yes. There is someone waiting Mr. Holmes, you wouldn’t want to worry them, would you? We don’t want them to hate me even more than they do already.”  
  
“Hate you? Why would he hate you?”  
  
Irene smirks at the subtle acknowledging. “Oh Mr. Holmes, you can be naive sometimes. I pretended to be dead and left you hurt. We both know that, John Watson knows that, so there is no use trying to hide it. That is not something that will go forgiven.”  
  
Sherlock’s brow arches up and he asks a question that otherwise would have been obvious. Pointedly ignoring the comment about Irene having hurt him. “Why would John care?”  
  
Irene rolls her eyes and sighs, she leans on her chair and adopts a condescending position with her body. She looks at him with a mix of sadness and pity in her eyes.  
  
“Why is the sky blue?” She laughs. “John Watson was right, you are a genius Sherlock Holmes and yet you are very ignorant.”  
  
Sherlock doesn’t ask why, and Irene doesn’t tell him, but the remainder of the day he notices the way she looks at him, aways from the corner of her eye. A bit sad still.  
  
She goes to sleep early that night and when Sherlock wakes up of his own sleep of two hours, there is a car waiting for him to take him to Mycroft’s private jet, and she is gone. He doesn’t know why that makes him sad but also relieved, or why the idea of saying goodbye possibly forever sounds worse than doing it like this, without facing her.  
  
There is a text from Mycroft waiting for him when he arrives at the airport. It reads ‘You thought I wouldn’t find out?’ and Sherlock smirks. Mycroft is getting old, it took him more than two days to notice Sherlock was gone. The text is immediately followed by another one which has him on edge the whole trip home:  
  
John is not happy.  
MH  
  
The arrival at Baker street is uneventful. Mycroft drops him off after a long and painful lecture which Sherlock mostly deletes as he half listens to it. When he opens the door he immediately knows John is not home, he also knows there will be a hurricane when John arrives. The dishes are piled up, there is almost no food, and there is at least three mugs of tea scattered around the flat. It means John is stressed out, possibly very angry. Sherlock uses those moment before the storm to take a shower and change, and just because he thinks it will earn him a few points, he starts picking things up and putting them where they belong.  
  
On the table of the kitchen inside a sealed plastic bag, Sherlock finds Irene’s cellphone, now empty of all its previous information. He smiles fondly, and swirls it on the air and catches it back with his hand again without problem. He is sure John and Mycroft wouldn’t intend for him to keep it but he doesn’t really care, for now he puts the cellphone in one his drawers, where he will remember to take it out and put it away.  
  
John arrives at the flat less than ten minutes later, with a bag of groceries in his hand and a tired expression that tells Sherlock he hasn’t slept in at least two days, the time Sherlock was gone.  
  
John notices him and immediately goes red on the face, throws the keys towards the floor. “You sodding bastard. Couldn’t you just tell me you were fucking leaving? Christ Sherlock, I wouldn’t have said anything if I had just known. But no, your brother had to come and tell me that you were in the middle of a high risk zone in the Middle East. The Middle East Sherlock! Does that ring any bells? You could have gotten yourself killed, or worse!”  
  
Silence falls.  
  
Normally Sherlock’s words make situations worse, but silence in this case is the killer. Sherlock can clearly see that John can’t stand the silence that fills the room. And truthfully, Sherlock can’t either but he doesn’t know what to say.  
  
 _I had to save her, I had to see is she was alright, I had to make sure she kept on living, I had... No one sees it like I do, not even you. But she did, and Moriarty does, but you don’t approve of Moriarty_..  
  
But they all seem useless and petty reasons now that Sherlock knows Irene never needed him.  
  
“I’m sorry.”  
  
I’m sorry for worrying you, I’m sorry I didn’t trust you enough, I’m sorry I didn’t realize she didn’t want me to follow her.  
  
John shakes his head and puts the groceries down on the table, then turns around the way he came.  
  
“I’m going to Sarah’s.”

 

  
  
 **9.**  
John arrives at Sarah’s, with a somber face and deep shadows under his eyes. She takes him in, demanding no more explanation than a simple ‘Sherlock’ as always. She lets him take the living room for tonight, and holds him close, whispers a ‘you don’t deserve this’ before leaving for bed.  
  
Sarah’s sofa is as uncomfortable, it digs into John’s back in all the wrong places, but he’ll take that over going back to the flat and facing Sherlock at the moment. He is glad the lunatic is safe, glad that apparently he accomplished whatever it was that drove him to follow Irene. John isn’t angry that he did, he isn’t angry that Sherlock decided to move on past him and onto someone else. He is angry his friend didn’t have the consideration of telling him he was leaving to a war zone, with virtually nothing to protect himself with.  
  
He barely sleeps that night, and the little time he does sleep is spent dreaming about mines in the ground exploding under Sherlock’s foot.  
  
Morning comes up in the shape of rays of sun hitting him directly on the face, he declines Sarah’s breakfast and excuses himself as quickly as he can without sounding impolite.  
  
When he comes down the stairs, what he sees startles him. Sherlock is sitting on the last step, half asleep with his coat wrapped tightly around himself and cheeks red from the cold.  
  
“Sherlock? How long have you been out here?”  
  
It takes a few minutes for Sherlock to shrug out fully of his slumber. “About three hours, possibly four. I have lost track of time.”  
  
“It’s freezing out here. Christ Sherlock, come one, let’s go.”  
  
“No.” Says Sherlock curtly.  
  
John gave him a puzzled look. “Why not?”  
  
“You are angry with me.” Stated Sherlock like it was the most natural reason for not wanting to go somewhere warm.  
  
“Yes I am, but that doesn’t mean you have to catch pneumonia. Or that I have to catch pneumonia.”  
  
Sherlock crosses his arms in front of his chest and scoffs, “You shouldn’t be angry with me.”  
  
“Are you even listening to me?” demands John, “We’ll discuss it in the flat alright? Come on!”  
  
They don’t speak as they walk, only when they are about a block from Baker Street Sherlock turns to look at him and with the most indignant voice John has heard he tells him. “You have no right to be angry at me.”  
  
And that makes John stop even with the cold making his shiver.  
  
“Pardon? I have no right? I have every right you idiot.”  
  
“No, why would it affect you anyway?”  
  
“Sherlock... I can’t believe you are saying this. We are friends, if something happened to you of course it would affect me!”  
  
Sherlock huffs and puts the collar of his coat up around his neck. “You claim to care for me, yet when it is blatantly obvious that you have romantic feelings for me you keep on dating, you come sleep with Janette? No.. Sarah!”  
  
“That’s... that doesn’t... It’s not... That doesn’t mean I don’t care about you idiot. And how do you know if I have any sort of feelings for you?”  
  
“Oh please John, it’s obvious, and I’m sure it’s obvious that I have begun to experience something similar for you.”  
  
“Obvi... what? No Sherlock, It isn’t obvious at all! I don’t even...” He rubs the space between his eyes, and makes a ‘give me patience’ face up to the sky. “And how can you accuse me of dating and seeing Sarah when you went over to the other side of the world to a dangerous war zone for Irene Adler!”  
  
Sherlock eyes narrow and he turns around leaving John behind and walks towards the door of 221B. “That’s because you don’t observe John!” He shouts, “You knew from that first night since you moved in with me. You knew then and you did nothing.”  
  
“We barely knew each other! And why is it all my fault? I don’t recall you doing something either.”  
  
“You are impossible!”  
  
“Huh, well you are not much better. Now can you get inside I’m fucking freezing here!”  
  
Opening the door takes more than normal when two people are fighting for the knob and for whose key goes inside the lock. John wins of course, in spite of his size he still maintains the physical body of a military man and a hard shove with his shoulder is enough to push Sherlock away.  
  
Once inside the air feels thick against their skins, the heater must be on, and it is a great contrast from outside. John takes off his jacket and leans against the wall for a minute, just enough for his hands and feet to get warm.  
  
It is too familiar to be comfortable in their current situation. And both Sherlock and John notice, they look awkwardly at the wall John is leaning against and look away. John clears his throat and starts walking upstairs, Sherlock is behind him too close to be accidental.

 

  
  
 **10.**  
They stare at eachother for a long while, the moment the door to the flat closes behind them. Everything is death still except for the ticking of the only clock they possess, there is no laughter or voices, there isn’t creaking or water running, just the tick tock in time with their breathing. They are both exhaling hard and still trying to calm down the frantic beats of their hearts; the situation is oddly familiar.  
  
“You are an idiot.” John breaks the silence again, just like he did that time under the stairs.  After all these months, and he still can’t stand quietness between them, silence is fine because even when they don’t talk they are connected by their movement, by their eyes by the curve of their lips and the shape of their smile; but quietness is completely different, quietness tells them nothing. “But that’s all I will say on the matter, just don’t dare do it again.”  
  
Sherlock seems to sigh in relief or annoyance, it’s difficult to tell, but when he speaks there is a quirk to his brow and a pull to his lip, a hidden smirk that tells John it’ll be alright. “I can’t promise that John. But next time I will tell you beforehand.”  
  
John nods, because he knows this is as much as he will get from Sherlock. “Good, please do or next time I will be the one going to Mycroft to complain, and not the other way around.”  
  
Sherlock wrinkles his nose in distaste and looks away.  
  
There is another silence, this time of a different kind, one that John could get use to with but that he can’t fully appreciate, not with Sherlock standing so close, not with their souls so in tune at the moment. Not when there are so many things he could be saying right now.  
  
Inside John’s head there is a combat taking place, between the part that screams at him that this is it, that this is the moment to finally be open both with himself and Sherlock; and the part that whispers: _just let it go._  
  
In that instant Sherlock moves towards him becoming the mediator for once, the base of their universe, and the world unravels.  
  
Sherlock's lips search for his almost desperately, John can smell the faint scent of Irene’s perfume still clinging to his skin and he doesn't like it. He wants to erase any trace of it from Sherlock's clothes, and skin and mind. He wants to make sure Sherlock forgets her, because Irene hurt him and she doesn't deserve to be remembered. John also knows that this is wrong, that Sherlock won't forget about her as long as he doesn't want to, but in this moment as he kisses Sherlock breathless he can imagine that he possesses a magical spell that can put Sherlock together again and make him forget.  
  
"I don't love her." Sherlock murmurs as the kiss breaks, using the smallest voice John has ever heard from him.  
  
"I never said you did." He retorts.  
  
"You were thinking about it just now."  
  
"I won't ask how you know that."  
  
"Mmhmm." Sherlock makes a noncommittal sound.  
  
"Alright, I'll bite. If you don't love her, how do you feel about her?"  
  
Sherlock thinks about how to answer for a bit, he knows the wrong answer could turn this around and make John angry again. “She understood.” He says with caution. “She understood what is like when your mind never shuts off.”

“You think I don’t understand?”  
  
“No, you do John! That’s what’s so incredible about you, I never thought someone could understand like you do. You let me be me. But she understood it from personal experience.”  
  
John decides to not take that as an insult and instead retorts, “Moriarty understands that too Sherlock, and you...you don’t love him. You don’t right?  
  
"No” answers Sherlock quickly. “I don’t, but he understands as well so I feel a connection. What I feel for her is not love. Love is a disadvantage John, a weakness. A series of chemicals you cannot control, it's messy and irritable and there is a very high chance that it will end with less than favourable consequences. There is no reason whatsoever that I would want to experience that rubbish towards more than one person."  
  
Time freezes. Just like it froze with that kiss under the stairs. Except this time it is only John's internal clock that stops, suspended in the paradox that is Sherlock Holmes.  
  
"...More mhm" he clears his throat with difficulty then tries again. "More than one person? I, I wasn't aware that..."  
  
"John, don't be so dull. This love business is useless and petty, but that doesn't mean I am incapable of experiencing it."  
  
"How do you even know that what you are feeling is love then?” It comes out without his permission, a fearful impulse, he doesn’t really think about what it implies.  
  
Sherlock frowns and he is looking down at John, frustrated. John can feel his eyes piercing through his skull; but he stays still and firm, staring back because this is not the moment to shy away from anything, this is not the moment to fear and to hide beneath layers of past experiences. There would be plenty of time for that later on.  
  
"This is enough experimentation John, my hypothesis is correct. I’ve been trying to forget about it because I have never experienced such things and it had been interfering with my work. I don’t like when things interfere with my work, and the work is all that used to matter, until you. I was sure you felt the same, all the facts pointed to _that_ ,” he puts emphasis on the last word then goes on. “However, you seemed quite keen on moving on to one of your girlfriends.”  
  
“I- I don’t know” says John honestly, “I guess I was just afraid. I was kissing you the same day I met you, Christ I killed a man the same day I met you Sherlock. I- this is, it was not me, it happened too fast, I didn’t even know you and I didn’t know what to believe, but it has been eating from the inside me since then. And then with Moriarty I thought I was going to lose you, and even days later I couldn’t stop thinking about it, I couldn’t say anything then. I was terrified. And when Irene came you seemed driven towards her and I just wanted you to be happy.”  
  
“Happy...” Sherlock looks at him with an uncertain smile and sad eyes. “No one has ever told me they just want me to be happy...”  
  
Their lips touch again and this time nothing stops, the world keeps on turning as their lips meet, the universe unravels and presents itself with all its mysteries and secrets to their eyes. John's tongue sweeps over Sherlock's lower lip and slowly slips inside, Sherlock's tongue answers with a shy touch, uncertain and inexpert. There is a moment where  their hands lay by their sides unmoving, waiting for some sort of signal before touching more. It comes in the shape of a long sigh from Sherlock's mouth, John's eyes squeeze shut tightly and his arms raise up, palms hesitantly touching Sherlock's chest and his arms, and down through the extremely thin fabric of his shirt.  
  
John hooks his fingers on Sherlock's belt loops and pulls him forward, towards himself. The end result is electricity running through both their bodies, speeding the beatings of their hearts Sherlock's hands finally join John's on their dance, they touch from John's neck and down his back over his jumper.  
  
The kiss breaks because it has to, because nothing this good can last forever, it doesn't matter how much they both want it to. The air that suddenly fills their lungs reminds them how to breath, and Sherlock wonders vaguely what would the effects of air deprivation due to kissing would do to the brain. He supposes he'll find out soon enough.  
  
"Kiss me, kiss me again."    
  
"Sherlock..."  
  
"John... please just kiss me.”  
  
Nothing stops them after that. John kisses his way down Sherlock’s neck, unbuttons his shirt one button at the time, licking at his collarbone, and sucking on the space between his ear and his neck. Sherlock pulls his jumper off and unbuttons his shirt as well, his eyes taking in every detail about John, deducing his scars and unraveling his life.  
  
Clothes fall to the ground while hands reach forward to caress an arm, a stomach, a hand. Their lips find each other again and they breathlessly pull one into the other’s orbit, until nothing separates them anymore, until Sherlock and John don’t exist as sole elements, but always as a compound. Their tongues lick and dance, John slips his own inside Sherlock’s mouth, makes sure to touch every corner possible, Sherlock breaths out, moans into John’s mouth and let’s the feeling take over him.  
  
Their trousers don’t last long either, one moment they are unbuttoning them and pulling zippers down, the next the fabric is pooling at their feet and being left on the floor just like everything else. John slips a hand inside Sherlock’s pants, he feels the weight and the shape of Sherlock’s cock, he touches the length of it and strokes the tip, pulling back the skin. Meanwhile he presses his own cock against Sherlock’s thigh, he seeks friction of his own until Sherlock too is slipping a hand inside his pants, trying to mimic John’s movements with a bit of uncertainty.  
  
Sherlock comes first after just a few minutes. He doesn’t moan or scream but he rests his forehead on John’s shoulder and squeezes his eyes shut until the tremors have passed through his body and he can look up again.  
  
John still takes a lot longer, he lets Sherlock guide their movements and explore with his hands. Then worries himself on kissing Sherlock’s lips until they are ruby red and raw and moves on to his neck until there is soft red marks all over pale skin. When he comes he grunts and whispers Sherlock’s name to his ear, he lets his knees give out and falls to the ground bringing Sherlock with him.  
  
That’s where they sleep that night, just curled around one another for warmth and the sofa pillows for comfort. They don’t talk, Sherlock spends most of the night tracing patterns on John’s skin while John memorizes it with his lips.  
  
 _I love you._  
  
And it’s this moment that everything comes back to them, all that was leading up to this point, to the moment they look into the other’s eyes and think _this is it_.  
  
There is no enemy or foe, no challenge they can’t overcome. No game they can’t win, no fears they can’t overcome and no fall from which they can’t get up.  
  
The unity they formed since that kiss under stairs becomes entwined with their friendship to form a stronger thread holding them together. They are not just flatmates, they are not just friends, they aren’t even just Sherlock and John, they are two souls that fall into each other time and time again, they are the atoms and the matter that make up the universe, they are the taste of a hot cup of tea, the adrenaline and joy of a crime scene. They are the missing part to each other’s puzzle, a paradox of themselves, a calm within a chaos, a brain and a heart.

 

 

End~

**Author's Note:**

> This is a re-imagining of what maybe would have happened if Sherlock and John had kissed when they were laughing under the stairs. I mostly focused on the inside of their minds though, and many events were omitted due to both time and the fact that I wanted to focus more on others.  
> It has always been my headcanon that if there was a specific moment in which John knew Sherlock was it for the rest of his life then that would be the laughter under the stairs. And for Sherlock it would be at the very end of ASiP after John shots the cabbie for him.


End file.
